US Politics

Nine Americans are still missing following the 7 October attack by Hamas on Israel, the US national security adviser said on Sunday.Jake Sullivan, the White House’s chief security adviser, said the US is involved in “ongoing negotiations” for the release of hostages believed to be held by Hamas in Gaza.The comments come as Hamas said it is suspending hostage negotiations because of Israel’s handling of the besieged al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. On Saturday, the World Health Organization said it had lost communication with people at the hospital, where more than 30 babies are among the sick Palestinians trapped by fighting.Speaking on ABC’s This Week, Sullivan said:“There are ongoing negotiations involving the Israelis, the Qataris, and we, the United States, are actively engaged in this as well because we want to make sure that we bring home those Americans who have been taken hostage as well as all of the other hostages.”Sullivan said President Joe Biden “is not going to rest” until every hostage was released. He said it was unclear how many people were being held by Hamas.“We know the number of missing and that’s the number the Israelis have given. But we don’t know how many of those are still alive,” Sullivan said.“As far as the Americans are concerned, there are nine missing American citizens as well as a missing legal permanent representative, a green card holder.”On Sunday, Hamas said it would suspend negotiations due to the situation at al-Shifa hospital. The Guardian reported that there are multiple accounts of people being shot as they attempted to flee the hospital. Three of 39 babies in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit had died.UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, issued a statement Sunday describing “a dire situation where thousands of injured and displaced civilians find themselves trapped within the hospital grounds”.“Ongoing fighting and the lack of fuel are putting at risk the lives of health workers, patients and some of the most vulnerable people in Gaza, many of whom have been sheltering at al-Shifa, including women, children, the elderly and disabled,” the statement said.“They, and critically ill patients, have nowhere safe to go, with reports of ambulances being unable to leave the grounds. There are also reports of fighting around a number of other hospitals.”In an interview with CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli’s prime minister, said Israel will not stop its fighting around al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. He said Israeli forces had “called to evacuate all the patients from that hospital”.Sullivan told ABC that he would meet with family members of American hostages in the coming week.The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has claimed that over 11,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel began airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, in response to a Hamas attack in Israel which killed 1,200 Israelis. More

One of the strongest candidates for US president in 2024 may be one who’s not yet in the race. There’s growing evidence that Gavin Newsom, the charismatic and energetic Democratic governor of California, is running something of a shadow campaign to Joe Biden and ready to step up if, or when, the incumbent is out of the running.Several developments in recent days suggest Newsom, who romped to re-election a year ago without really campaigning, is ready to bring forward what was already expected to be a strong run for the presidency in 2028.There are mounting concerns inside the Democratic party, matching polling among voters, that Biden is too old for a second term, the start of which in January 2025 would see him two months past his 82nd birthday if re-elected. Some want him to stand down.Newsom, 56, is among a generation of younger, prominent and popular Democrats expected to emerge from the shadow of the old guard, and has stolen a march on his peers with a series of bold moves many analysts see as strategic.Even movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, himself a Republican former two-term governor of California, thinks a Newsom run at the White House is inevitable.“I think it’s a no-brainer. Every governor from a big state wants to take that shot,” Schwarzenegger said earlier this year.But not all Democrats appear thrilled at the prospect. Pennsylvania US senator John Fetterman, at a dinner in Iowa, connected Newsom with Dean Philips, a congressman who said he is challenging Biden.“[There are two] running for president right now,” he said. “One is a congressman from Minnesota, the other is the governor of California, but only one has the guts to announce it.”This week, Newsom made a financial donation to a Democratic mayoral candidate in Charleston, South Carolina, 2,800 miles from his governor’s mansion in Sacramento. Reaching into political elections in other states is, experts say, a sure sign of a potential presidential candidate wishing to raise their profile on the national stage.“South Carolina is an early state in the primary process for Democrats, and doing well in the early states is seen as momentum for later ones,” said Eric Schickler, professor of political science at University of California, Berkeley, and co-director of its institute of governmental studies.“In fact, Biden’s win in South Carolina is really what propelled him to the top 2020, so building connections to important politicians in the state can certainly be seen by potential candidates as an important step.”Newsom has publicly denied that he has sights on Biden’s job.“I’m rooting for our president and I have great confidence in his leadership,” he told Fox News earlier this year.But while Schickler believes Newsom’s own thinking about the timing of any White House run probably hasn’t changed, he says circumstances have.“The Democratic party’s nervousness about Biden has certainly increased, and with him polling behind Donald Trump in many states, his low approval ratings, young voters being especially disenchanted with Biden, all of that has heightened interest among a lot of party supporters in an alternative,” he said.That alternative might not be Kamala Harris, who as vice-president would usually be assumed Biden’s heir apparent. Her public approval is currently as low as the president’s.So a rising, often progressive-leaning politician such as Newsom, with a wealth of executive and legislative experience, and a willingness to counter head-on Republican policies and personalities, makes for an attractive proposition.“It’s not a situation where there’s like 20, or 50, or 100 Democratic leaders who could be viewed as legitimate. If there were such a group, Newsom has positioned himself pretty well and would be on a very short list along with [Michigan governor] Gretchen Whitmer and a couple others,” Schickler said.“The problem is the party. There’s just a lot of different voices, a lot of different constituencies, and not really anybody or any group that could authoritatively say, ‘Oh, it’s Newsom’.“[But] he would certainly be one of the most serious people. The things he’s doing now, it helps him for 2028, which still is the most likely scenario, and certainly doesn’t eliminate him if something crazy or unexpected were to happen in the next six months.”Other not so subtle clues that Newsom has sights on higher office include his $10m (£8.2m) investment earlier this year in a new political action committee designed to spread the Democratic party’s message in Republican-held states he said have “authoritarian leaders directly attacking our freedoms”.Among the targets is Ron DeSantis, the hard-right Florida governor and faltering candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. The pair will debate each other on 30 November in a highly anticipated nationally televised event once billed as a clash of two leading White House contenders.“The idea of debating DeSantis was probably a lot more appealing when it really did look like he might actually defeat Trump. In that scenario, showing you can debate him and score a lot of points helps Newsom’s visibility with the party and makes his case that he would be an effective candidate,” Shickler said.“With DeSantis not doing so well, the upside for Newson is less, but there are still Democrats who would be happy to see him debate and defeat him. He only stands to benefit, it’s just the benefit will be smaller.” More

US House speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a Republican stopgap spending measure late Saturday aimed at averting a government shutdown in a week, but the measure quickly ran into opposition from lawmakers from both parties in Congress.Unlike ordinary continuing resolutions that fund federal agencies for a specific period, the measure announced by Johnson would fund some parts of the government until 19 January and others until 2 February. House Republicans hope to pass the measure Tuesday.“This two-step continuing resolution is a necessary bill to place House Republicans in the best position to fight for conservative victories,” Johnson said in a statement after announcing the plan to House Republicans in a conference call.The House Republican stopgap contained no supplemental funding such as aid for Israel or Ukraine.The House and Democratic-led Senate must agree on a spending vehicle that President Joe Biden can sign into law by Friday. Otherwise, they risk a fourth partial government shutdown in a decade that would close national parks, disrupt pay for as many as 4 million federal workers and disrupt a swath of activities from financial oversight to scientific research.The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said in a release that the proposal was “just a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns”. She said: “House Republicans are wasting precious time with an unserious proposal that has been panned by members of both parties.“Johnson, the top Republican in Congress, unveiled his stopgap a day after Moody’s, the last major credit rating agency to maintain a top “AAA” rating on the US government, lowered its outlook on the nation’s credit to “negative” from “stable”. Moody’s cited political polarization in Congress on spending as a danger to the nation’s fiscal health.The Louisiana Republican appeared to be appealing to two warring House Republican factions: hardliners who wanted legislation with multiple end-dates; and centrists who had called for a “clean” stopgap measure free of spending cuts and conservative policy riders that Democrats reject.The legislation would extend funding for military construction, veterans benefits, transportation, housing, urban development, agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and energy and water programs through 19 January. Funding for all other federal operations would expire on 2 February.But members of both parties aimed political fire at the plan quickly.“My opposition to the clean [continuing resolution] just announced by the speaker … cannot be overstated,” Chip Roy, a member of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, said on the social media platform X.The Republican Roy had called for the new measure to include spending cuts.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDemocratic senator Brian Schatz called Johnson’s measure “super convoluted”, adding that “all of this nonsense costs taxpayer money”.“We are going to pass a clean short term [resolution]. The only question is whether we do it stupidly and catastrophically or we do it like adults,” Schatz wrote on X.A stopgap measure would give lawmakers more time to implement full-scale appropriations bills to fund the government through 30 September.Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted from the House speakership by eight hardline fellow Republicans after he moved a bipartisan measure to avert a shutdown on 1 October. McCarthy opted for the bipartisan route after hardliners blocked a Republican stopgap measure with features intended to appease them. More

As Israeli ground troops battled in Gaza City amid a spiralling civilian death toll on Tuesday, the congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the sole Palestinian American member of the US Congress, rose to answer a censure motion rebuking her for comments she made about the war.Gripping a photograph of her sity, her grandmother who lives in the occupied West Bank, she defended her stance and declared that she “will not be silenced” and “will not let you distort my words”.“I can’t believe I have to say this, but Palestinian people are not disposable,” Tlaib said, her voice breaking. The congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota reached to comfort Tlaib, a show of solidarity between the only Muslim women in the chamber. Tlaib continued: “The cries of the Palestinian and Israeli children sound no different to me.”Late that night, 22 Democrats joined nearly all Republicans in censuring Tlaib, a punishment one step below expulsion. As the gavel came down, her closest allies in the Democratic party’s progressive wing, all people of colour, encircled Tlaib as if to form a protective shield.The extraordinary scene crystallised the fierce devotion and respect that Tlaib – one of 14 children of Palestinian immigrants to the US – commands among her political allies, friends, staff members and, according to supporters, many of her constituents in her Michigan congressional district.But in its intensity, it also underlined the fierce passions aroused among critics of the Michigan Democrat, 47, who has become – at least since Hamas’s attack on Israel last month – one of the most polarising figures on Capitol Hill.The censure against Tlaib, proposed by the Republican congressman Rich McCormick of Georgia, accused her of “promoting false narratives regarding the October 7 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel”. Its passage made Tlaib only the 26th member of the House of Representatives to be censured since its formation in 1789.Tuesday’s vote, which came days after she avoided an earlier censure motion, was triggered by the presence of a highly charged slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, in a video Tlaib posted on social media last week that also accused Joe Biden of supporting “genocide” and called for an immediate ceasefire to Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.However hurtful personally for Tlaib – a legislator known for her diligence and conscientiousness on behalf of her constituents – she signalled that she has no intention of backing down, reflecting the stubbornness Biden himself praised two years ago, when, following a famous eight-minute heated conversation on Palestinian rights on the runway of Detroit’s airport, he complimented her as “a fighter”.“She will not be deterred by a censure motion passed by the House of Representatives. Not a bone in my body believes that,” said Abbas Alawieh, a senior Democratic strategist who previously worked as Tlaib’s legislative director.“Rashida is a person on a mission. She is fiercely protective of the people she loves. She will stop at nothing. For her, to support or not to support a cause isn’t a theoretical political question. It’s a question of whether or not her family members deserve to stay alive. It’s the life or death of people she’s directly connected to.”This commitment has fortified her against a shocking degree of personal abuse that would have felled other politicians, said Alawieh, who recalled spikes in phone calls to her office and verbal attacks in public, often after Fox News or other rightwing news channels had criticised her views.“When I went to work for her, I couldn’t believe how often the phone rang,” he said. “You couldn’t even imagine how many vile, unacceptable bad words could be strung together in sentences. It will be a sentence jam-packed with sexism, racism, Islamophobia – just all of it.”Tlaib, whose father was born in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Beit Hanina, has long been a lightning rod for criticism from Israel’s staunchest supporters, who have alleged that her views and rhetoric are antisemitic.In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack, she faced backlash from Republicans and some Democrats over her initial statement, in which she expressed grief for the loss of “Palestinian and Israeli lives” but did not mention Hamas, though she did call for “ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system”.She drew additional fire from her critics after being one of nine Democrats to vote against a House resolution – subsequently adopted by a vote of 412-10 – declaring solidarity with Israel after the Hamas attacks.Explaining her opposition in a floor debate on 25 October, she said the resolution was “not a serious examination of the root causes of the violence we are witnessing and doubles down on decades of failed policy”.Unconditional US military support for Israel had failed to bring “peace and justice” to the region, she said.She added: “Achieving a just and lasting peace where Israelis and Palestinians have equal rights and freedoms, and where no person lives in fear for their safety, requires ending the blockade, occupation and dehumanizing system of apartheid.”Her opponents have also pointed to her use of the “river to the sea” slogan. While Tlaib and others justify the phrase as an “aspirational call for freedom, human rights and peaceful co-existence”, critics say it is a pro-Hamas chant calling for the eradication of the Jewish state.The Democratic congressman Brad Schneider of Illinois cited her embrace of the slogan and her refusal to remove a tweet blaming Israel for a devastating explosion at al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza City that killed hundreds, despite Israeli denials and US intelligence claims that a misfired Palestinian rocket had caused the damage.“Congresswoman Tlaib has repeatedly insisted on using inflammatory language that dangerously amplifies Hamas propaganda and disinformation,” Schneider said in a statement. “Representative Tlaib most certainly understands the import and impact of her words and yet still chooses to use them anyway. We are at an exceedingly perilous moment, when emotions and intentions are on a razor’s edge.”Even Bernie Sanders, the leftwing senator from Vermont, who has spoken out forcefully against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza while stopping short of a ceasefire call, voiced muted criticism of Tlaib’s use of the slogan.Calling her a “friend” who had been “shaken” by the bloodshed in Gaza, Sanders told CNN: “We need a serious discussion on how the hell we get out of this difficult situation, maintain democracy, bring peace to the world. And it ain’t easy, but slogans are not going to do it on any side.”The congressman Jamaal Bowman of New York, a fellow member of the progressive “Squad” who has also called for a ceasefire, dismissed the focus on the slogan as “a distraction”, calling Tlaib “one of the strongest, most compassionate people I know”.“Congresswoman Tlaib has always been an advocate of peace, justice and human rights,” he said. “It is false and misleading to imply that she intended to call for destruction or violence. She is not in support of Hamas. We should all be doing everything in our power to end violence against innocent civilians.”Conservatives have demanded Tlaib take down the Palestinian flag displayed outside her congressional office, saying it was disrespectful in the wake of the Hamas attack. One Republican member advocated a ban on foreign flags in the Capitol, while another, the congressman Brian Mast of Florida, wore a uniform from his time serving in the Israel Defence Forces. On X, he wrote: “Tlaib’s Got Her Flag, I’ve Got My Uniform.”Mast later said there are “very few innocent Palestinian civilians … I don’t think we would so lightly throw around the term innocent Nazi civilians”, remarks that some House Democrats believe warrant a censure.Tlaib’s previous outspokenness has landed her in hot water with pro-Israel advocates. The liberal Israel advocacy group J Street withdrew its endorsement of her campaign in 2018 after she publicly voiced support for a one-state solution to the Middle East conflict, in open contradiction of the organisation’s policy favouring two states, Israel beside an independent Palestine. As part of her support for a one-state solution – entailing a single democratic state encompassing Israel and the occupied territories – Tlaib has said she is uncomfortable with the idea of uprooting Jewish settlers from their homes in the occupied West Bank.In a floor speech in 2021, Tlaib, arguing against a bill to send $1bn in additional funding to support Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense program, accused Israel’s far-right government of operating a “violent apartheid system”, a characterization that drew a furious response from longstanding Democratic supporters of Israel. Tlaib, who has long sought to condition aid to Israel on Palestinian rights, was one of just nine lawmakers to vote against the measure.Tlaib has Jewish supporters, particularly among leftwing groups that echo her ceasefire calls and have staged demonstrations in Washington accusing Israel of unleashing a “genocidal” war in Gaza.“Congresswoman Tlaib is truly an incredible person and one of the few members of Congress who genuinely cares about people,” said Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a leftist group that openly describes itself as anti-Zionist.“She has so much warmth and love, and makes everyone feel welcome and safe around her. This is really important because we see this horrible smear campaign that turns her into the opposite of what she is – which is someone who cares deeply for Israelis who have been killed, as well as Palestinians who have been killed. We are proud to be her ally in this.”Eva Borgwardt, the national spokesperson for If Not Now, another Jewish group that has staged ceasefire rallies in concert with JVP, said Tlaib was a victim of anti-Palestinian racism being espoused by Republican politicians who see her as a “threat to their vision of a white Christian supremacist future of America”.“As a Jewish American, I’m absolutely terrified of the implications of the ongoing targeting of Rashida, because Jewish and Palestinian safety is tied together,” she said. “I cannot imagine what it’s like to face what she has dealt with. I can only hope to have a tiny amount of the integrity and strength that it must take to stand up and lead in Congress every day despite threats from other congressmen down the hall.”As the first Palestinian-American woman to serve in Congress, Tlaib carries “a greater burden” when she challenges US policy toward Israel, said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.But he said Tlaib is not acting alone. For many constituents in her district, which includes the city of Dearborn, home to one of the largest Arab American communities in the country, Palestinian rights are deeply personal, he said.“For people in her district, this isn’t some sort of foreign policy issue,” Walid said. “These are people who have family members who are directly impacted by occupation and bombs being dropped on civilians.”Despite her support in the district, Tlaib’s detractors hope that her denunciations of the US response to the Israel-Hamas war will draw a primary challenge from the party’s center, like the ones facing other Israel skeptics within the party.In Detroit, she is now the target of an attack ad by a Democratic pro-Israel group. The ad sharply criticises Tlaib for her vote last month against a House resolution declaring solidarity with Israel following the Hamas assault, as well as her past vote against funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. It also argues that her ceasefire bill “would allow the terrorists to rearm themselves”.“We thought it was important for her constituents and neighbors to know that she is not only wrong on the substance, but radically out of step with the Democratic party,” said Mark Mellman, whose group, the Democratic Majority for Israel, is behind the ad.He continued: “We’re trying to see if she might moderate her positions as a result of her constituents. And if not, perhaps someone will be interested in taking her on.”Tlaib’s supporters have denounced the ad’s rhetoric as “dangerous” and demanded its removal in light of a sharp rise in Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment.The irony of all this, say longtime associates, is that Tlaib has never set out to be a pro-Palestinian organiser – preferring to focus on local issues such as poverty, pollution and water rights, particularly in African American communities.She campaigned vigorously to win a $600m lead pipe replacement and challenged socially conservative parts of her district with her advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights.“When people in her district think about Rashida in general, they think ‘water is a human right’,” said Alawieh. “She was obsessed with the idea.”That may once have been true. But nationally, her reputation is set to be defined by more global – and more bitterly contested – concerns.For Cori Bush, a progressive Democrat from Missouri who sponsored ceasefire legislation with Tlaib, it is destined to eclipse the present turmoil and land the Michigan congresswoman a place squarely on the right side of history.“Even though the censure happened, people must understand that that is not her legacy,” Bush said. “Rashida Tlaib’s legacy will be about saving lives. It will be about making sure the Palestinians know that they belong and that they should exist in this world.“She will be known for being the freedom fighter and the justice warrior. She will be known for being the peacekeeper.” More

If you think you’ve read everything you need to know about the violent attempt to overthrow the US government on 6 January 2021, this insider’s book by a 6ft 7in African American Capitol police officer will change your mind.Harry Dunn has written a 237-page cri de coeur for himself and for the US. It is a story that is more important than ever when so many crazed Republicans continue to revere the traitor whom the justice department says is directly responsible for this singularly shameful episode in American history.On that terrible day, Dunn and hundreds of his fellow Capitol cops were in hand-to-hand combat with scores of drunken and drug-addled seditionists. The police officers were attacked with everything from metal bike racks to flagpoles and banisters ripped from the stairs of the building.“You could hear the screaming and hollering as the battle raged on,” Dunn writes. “Blood was streaming down officers’ faces. They were yelling, grunting, and trying to force the rioters back. Many of them were blinded and coughing after being doused with pepper spray, bear spray, and even WD-40.”In the years since then, Dunn has beaten back post-traumatic stress disorder with the help of his family, his friends, professional therapists and sympathetic Congress members like Jamie Raskin of Maryland. Raskin took Dunn to lunch after the officer called the congressman’s office to tell him he was the source of an anonymous quote in a story in BuzzFeed which – to Dunn’s delight – Raskin had tweeted out.Since then, Dunn has made dozens of public appearances and written this book, with a single goal: “I want the people responsible for that day, including Trump … to pay a price, just like we paid a price … I will always be standing my ground to make sure our democracy exists. And I’ll ask that you stand with me so that nothing like this ever happens again.”Dunn reserves his greatest anger for those he and his fellow officers risked their lives for in the face of that furious mob. He was “full of rage” when it became clear that “Republicans were walking away from their earlier condemnation of the attack … Congress members … whom I had guarded and protected through State of the Unions [and] inaugurations … had suddenly turned on me. It angered me that loyalty to a single individual could overwhelm otherwise decent people … who had fallen into the darkness and forgotten their oaths of office.”He writes about how the day was particularly traumatic for Black police officers, because they were repeatedly called the N-word, as well as being beaten and sprayed and kicked and pummeled.He compares their treatment by Trump and others to the notorious assault in 1946 of a decorated Black second world war veteran named Isaac Woodard, who was pulled from a Greyhound bus because “the bus driver hadn’t liked the way Woodard asked to use the restroom” outside Augusta, Georgia. Local police officers beat him savagely and “the police chief used his baton to gouge Woodard’s eye sockets until both eyeballs ruptured beyond repair. Woodward was blind from that day forward.”“Now multiply that betrayal by two thousand times,” Dunn writes, “because that’s how many Capitol and Metropolitan police department officers were viciously assaulted by Americans whose democracy we defend every day.”After that, “we were betrayed by our president, many of our elected officials, and thousands of other Americans we had sworn to protect”.Dunn testified before the January 6 House committee and at trials for some of the terrorists who have been convicted for their crimes. Just like Woodard, “we were wearing our uniforms and badges, signifying our service to our nation”. But also just like Woodard, “to them we were throw-away people to be despised, hated and derided … merely because of the color of our skin … January 6 was never about politics. It wasn’t about election fraud. That was an excuse for people to do some shit they had wanted to do in the first place.”Last week’s election results in Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania – like the elections of 2018, 2020 and 2022 – proved once again that a majority of Americans reject the extremist agenda embraced by the Maga movement and its hideous head.Having finally recovered from most of the injuries inflicted on that fateful day in January 2021, Dunn feels he’s “been given a new lease on life, another chance to make a difference and that is what I want to do”. He ends the book with a plea to readers to do exactly what he is trying to do with that second chance: become a tireless foot soldier in the never-ending fight against racism and ignorance and book burning in America.He writes: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
Standing My Ground is published in the US by Hachette More

Did you know Cuba has a Capitol in Havana that closely resembles its American counterpart? Edel Rodriguez does, and that’s one more reason why he, a Cuban American political cartoonist, was so disturbed by what happened in his adopted homeland on January 6.Rodriguez grew up in the shadow of a different sort of insurgency, the revolution that swept Fidel Castro to power in January 1959. He knew what it was like for a people to lose their freedoms under a dictatorship, and he knew the resulting desire to seek liberty, which he and his family did in the Mariel boatlift in 1980. So after 2016, when Donald Trump won the White House, uncomfortable memories from the not-so-distant past began to surface, never more so than on 6 January 2021.Now, Rodriguez has put it all down in a graphic-novel memoir, Worm: A Cuban-American Odyssey.“I don’t think most Americans realize what a coup is, or a coup attempt, how dangerous it is,” he says.In Worm, compelling artwork revisits January 6 and its immediate aftermath, when barbed wire surrounded the US Capitol and the national guard patrolled. Red-and-black images juxtapose Castro’s revolutionary soldiers, fists and rifles raised, with the QAnon Shaman and an American flag at half-staff.Ask Rodriguez which panels he is most proud of and he holds up a pair of two-page spreads. One, at the beginning of the narrative, depicts the Cuban revolution, Castro’s bearded army storming Havana atop tanks, that familiar-looking Capitol in the background. A panel found near the end of the memoir, meanwhile, shows the US Capitol rioters charging the seat of Congress, wearing Maga caps and brandishing multiple flags: American, Confederate, “Back-the-Blue” pro-police. The images are inverses of each other, the crowds marching in opposite directions.“It really does go to what I’m trying to say – two sides of the same coin,” Rodriguez says.“When it was back in 2015, and Trump appeared on the scene, my ears perked up. He would call people ‘scum’. In Cuba, Castro called his enemies ‘scum’. The press was the ‘enemy of the people’. These were the kind of words Castro would use.”Rodriguez’s depictions of Trump are now famous, making the covers of Time and Der Spiegel. The most striking is up for debate. Is it Trump’s face as a melting blob, which MSNBC likened to the Wicked Witch of the West? Trump holding a bloody knife in one hand and the severed head of the Statue of Liberty in the other, inspired by a picture of an Islamic State terrorist? Trump draped in an American flag, giving the Nazi salute?“I think he brought a certain kind of extremism to politics in America,” Rodriguez says. “I felt that it needed to be addressed … I’m just not a fan of extremism of any sort.“The best way to deal with problems,” he says, is to hold democratic elections, and if your candidate doesn’t win, to try again in the next go-round. What he’s seen far too often instead is the authoritarian alternative of “men with guns – communists in Cuba, the Maga crowd in the US, or Isis”.In Worm, Rodriguez examines his first-hand experiences with dictatorship. In cold war Cuba, he lived an hour away from the capital, in the small town of El Gabriel. Although he remembers being far more tuned in to nature there than in the US, he also describes being indoctrinated in school, from the red beret he wore to the Castro personality cult that was instilled by teachers. His parents lived in fear that his father’s entrepreneurial streak might get them in trouble, including neighborhood snoops who put their curiosity to the use of the Communist party.A tip-off alerted Rodriguez’s father to stepped-up scrutiny, accelerating the decision to leave. The Mariel boatlift made things easier in some ways, harder in others, as Rodriguez now explains in Worm, which unfolds memories of tense exit negotiations with authorities; a state of limbo in a tent city; and the miraculous day when a rescue vessel came. For the Rodriguez family, it was a shrimp boat called Nature Boy. Castro released prisoners to join the exodus to America, some of whom packed the boat. It and a convoy of other vessels made it to US shores.As Cubans willingly left their homeland, Castro insulted them with a choice barb, the “worm” of the book’s title.“It’s what they would call us, being underground, taking from the system,” Rodriguez says.In Spanish, it’s gusano, which the author considered for a title.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Of course, gusano has, to me, a much more guttural sound,” he says. “I wanted it to translate for an English-speaking audience.”Decades later – after studying at the Pratt Institute, getting a big break at Time, marrying and raising a family and even going back to Cuba to see family and friends – Rodriguez felt familiar enough with authoritarianism in his birthplace to speak out against it in his new home. That desire increased over the course of Trump’s 2016 campaign and ensuing four years in power. The verbal attack on a Muslim Gold Star family … the Access Hollywood tape … the Muslim ban … it’s all there, and so are Rodriguez’s graphic-art ripostes. He gives Trump a distinctive look: yellow hair, orange skin, no eyes or nose, just a wide-open mouth.Rodriguez has found approval – and backlash. He realized just how big the backlash had grown when he fielded a sympathetic audience question about his safety after giving a lecture in another country with a troubled history.“I was surprised when the man in Germany asked what was going to happen to me when I returned to America,” he says. “I did not think about it, I did not process it. It was sort of like telling a writer or an artist, ‘What’s going to happen to you if you do your work?’ … What else am I going to do with my life?”Noting that “some of my family questioned what I was doing, very close family members, including my mother,” he adds: “I don’t really think about people’s perceptions of my work as a stumbling block that will get me in trouble or go to jail. It’s hard enough being an artist.”Rodriguez will keep making waves with his art, even if it is now tinged with a sense of betrayal and loss, from an American dream that became a nightmare.“I think January 6 really did puncture a lot of what America means to people – not just myself, but many people in the world,” he says. “The US is the place you go to hope and dream. To see the US Congress get attacked, like some country in some other part of the world that has been attacked, like the parliament in Moscow getting attacked in the 1990s – to feel that shock, to see that in the US … I’m very sad, very disappointed.“At the same time, I’m very scared. I don’t think Americans have processed how messed up Trump is, if you consider the same candidate could come back. The most recent polls have him ahead.”
Worm is published in the US by Metropolitan Books More

A California state judge dismissed efforts this past week to halt a recall vote led by a local police union who are attempting to oust a progressive city council member.The union, which is upset that the politician voted against officers’ pay raises, has so far spent more than $660,000 on the vote to recall Santa Ana council member Jessie Lopez, with voting happening 14 November.In California, only 10% of signatures from registered voters in jurisdictions with 100,000 or more voters is required for a recall petition to be approved, giving such measures a much higher chance to succeed than in many other parts of the US – which is why the state has seen recall efforts against its governor, Gavin Newsom; the San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin; and the Alameda county district attorney Pamela Price (Newsom remained governor, Boudin was ousted and the effort against Price is ongoing).The city of Santa Ana in southern California – adjacent to Anaheim, home of Disneyland – has a population of more than 300,000, divided into six wards.The recall petition began after Lopez voted against the police union’s demands for pay raises in December 2022. Property and landlord groups have also backed the recall effort in response to Lopez’s support for a 2021 rent-control law. Notable support came in the form of a recent $100,000 donation from the National Association of Realtors Fund.If Lopez loses the recall, she’s out of office and can’t run in a special election to find a replacement for the remainder of her term.The judge’s decision to allow the recall to continue was in response to a request for a temporary order to halt the vote, which was filed by a resident who voted for Lopez in 2020 but would not be eligible to vote in the recall vote because she doesn’t live in the ward’s current boundaries.“This recall effort is corrupt and will cost Santa Ana taxpayers $1.2m if the special interests get their way,” Jessie Lopez said on her campaign website against the recall.Lopez’s website alleges that the recall effort utilized canvassers who were paid per voter signature, and it characterized the recall as an effort by the Santa Ana police association president Gerry Serrano to flip control of the city council in his favor.This prompted the Orange county registrar’s office to rescind its certification of the recall petition signatures. But the Santa Ana city council deadlocked in a 3-3 vote, with Lopez abstaining, on whether to take action to halt the recall.The judge said the court would revisit the signature issue after the recall vote in January 2024.Lopez has received support from local labor unions, including the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 324 (UFCW), Unite Here Local 11, the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), the National Union of Healthcare Workers, Painters and Allied Trades District Council 36, the Orange county Democratic party, the Working Families Party and congresswoman Katie Porter.UFCW Local 324 has noted Lopez helped Santa Ana residents win hazard pay during the Covid-19 pandemic and led efforts on rent control as well as cannabis tax reform legislation.The Orange County Register newspaper’s editorial board wrote in opposition to the recall, saying: “We certainly have our differences with her on policy. But this recall really is about the lock-grip on power in the city of the Santa Ana police officers association. The police union and its allies have offered a litany of tangential reasons for the recall, but there’s no reason to pretend this is anything other than a power grab.”In 2020, the Santa Ana police association also backed the successful recall of city council member Ceci Iglesias after she voted against police pay raises. The police union also attempted to trigger a recall vote of city council member Thai Viet Phan but did not gather enough signatures by the 7 August deadline. More

Donald Trump’s attorneys have requested authorization for live, in-courtroom television coverage of his trial on charges that he conspired to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss so that the former commander-in-chief can publicly argue that the proceedings are unfair.The legal filing late on Friday, citing unsubstantiated allegations that Trump is the victim of persecution by the Biden White House, supports efforts by news organizations to provide live television coverage from inside the trial, which is scheduled to begin in March 2024.A rule that has been in place for decades prohibits televised broadcasting of criminal and civil proceedings in federal court, which can generally be attended in person by the public. The five-page submission filed by Trump’s attorneys does not mention that rule.“The prosecution wishes to continue this travesty in darkness. President Trump calls for sunlight,” the filing asserts, as first reported by Politico. “Every person in America, and beyond, should have the opportunity to study this case firsthand and watch as, if there is a trial, president Trump exonerates himself of these baseless and politically motivated charges.”The filing concludes with reaffirming Trump’s claim that he believes the election was “rigged and stolen”.Prosecutors in the case invoked the federal court rule against broadcasting in their response to efforts by numerous media outlets for permission to cover the trial live on television. The government also argued that a television broadcast of the trial could present risks to the proceeding, including facilitating the potential intimidation of witnesses and jurors.News outlets cited in their arguments the unusual degree of public interest in the case and the foreseen issues in accommodating trial spectators in the courthouse.Trump is grappling with four criminal prosecutions and several civil lawsuits, attempting to recast the legal peril as a platform to voters ahead of the 2024 contest for the Republican party’s White House nomination.Trump, widely viewed as the favorite to emerge as the Republican presidential nominee for next year, has been placed under a gag order that prohibits him from using social media platforms to denounce prosecutors, potential witnesses and court staff. The ex-president has complained that gag order infringes on his presidential campaign as well as his free speech rights under the US constitution’s first amendment.Live television coverage could serve as a means to circumvent that gag order.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBefore the gag order’s implementation, Trump had called the special counsel in the case in question – Jack Smith – “deranged”. The former president had also commented on testimony to a grand jury from his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.Prosecutors in the case said Trump had clearly been seeking to “send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case”.In late October, US district judge Tanya Chutkan ruled in favor of implementing the gag order after previously opting to place a temporary hold on the measure. The judge also denied Trump’s request to suspend the order while his attorneys appealed to a higher court. More